October 16, 1999
A major Earthquake of Magnitude 7.0 on the Richter Scale hit California early in the morning. The quake took place along the Lake Lavie fault, which, according to the US Geological Survey report (see Hector Mine ) has not been active for 10,0000 years, so the location of this event was impossible to predict by the USGS.
Luckily, very little damage and no loss of human life was reported. This is borne out by the chart of the event. Although Venus is in the first house squaring Pluto, the Moon makes a nice trine to Venus. However, The most important feature of the chart is that Mars is void. This means that Mars will make no Ptolemaic aspects until it changes signs, so even though it is in Sagittarius, the only sign which is half animal and half human, it is void, or dead. The effect of a Mars void can be protective, which correlates directly with the absence of loss of life and the absence of significant loss of property, which is normally associated with this type of event.
Tom Jerome Roma's Weekly Astrological Forecasts and Guide is the ONLY Annual that lists planetary voids other than the Moon's, yet another reason to own the best annual in the field.
The chart is published below, courtesy of Matrix software:
